Inspired by this website, dedicated to continuity errors in novels by Stephen King, (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/4612/) I thought I’d throw the door wide open.
What glaring continuity errors have you noticed in TV shows, movies, books, commercials, etc? I know about the ones in Pretty Woman, where Julia Roberts is seen eating a pancake, then a croissant, then back to a pancake. What continuity errors have you noticed?
Phil Farrand has written several books about this with regard to Star Trek. Look for his Nitpicker’s Guide books on Amazon.
Zev Steinhardt
One that’s always bugged me is in Roseanne, the TV show.
The first time that Darlene’s BF David is introduced his name is given as “Kevin”. And then, he becomes a regular as David with absolutely no mention of his previous incarnation as Kevin.
Some random ones:
Happy Days: Chuck, the infamous missing child.
MAS*H: In an early episode, Hawkeye mentioned he had a sister. Later on, of course, he was an only child.
Sidney Freedman had a different first name the first time he appeared on the show (I can’t remember off the top of my head what it was).
Cheers & Fraiser: During an episode of Cheers, Fraiser mentions his dearly, departed Dad. On Fraiser, they tried to fix the situation by claiming that Fraiser had just had a fight with his father, but the way in which he mentioned his father on that episode gave no indication that he was angry at all.
Simpsons: We all know that Bart is an underachiever, but how many years will he have to spend in the fourth grade? 
Zev Steinhardt
In another episode of Cheers Dr. Fraiser says that his father was doing experiments. One of the guys says “So your father was a scientist?” to which he replied “No, he was a lab rat.” Of course in Fraiser his father is a retired police officer.
Marc
In one of the episodes, Roseanne makes a joke the David isn’t his real name, it’s just something Darlene made up! (may or may not be inspired by the initial appearance)
The IMDB lists thousands, so it’s not hard to find them, especially when it comes to matching shots within a scene.
Phil Farrand also has a website at http://www.nitcentral.com with newsletters and reviews full of this kind of thing, plus a discussion board where you can contribute your own. I’ve posted a few things there myself.
One error I noticed recently when I got the first set of the Jeremy Brett <I>Sherlock Holmes</I> series on DVD: At the very end of the episode “The Dancing Men,” there is a shot of a country house with a horse and carriage sitting out front. If you watch the upper left-hand side of the screen as the camera pulls back, you can see a good-sized road with lots of cars on it in the distance behind the house.
The last Law and Order of the season, the one with the terrorist killed by a neighbor, who had evidence but no one at the FBI saw him.
Briscoe and Green are standing outside a mosque, talking to a witness. In the background you see a man leaving the mosque, holding his hand out to his wife, who is wearing an orange burqa.
Cut to the face of the witness.
Cut back to Brisco and Green, and the same couple walk out of the mosque again!
On another “Frasier” episode, Martin mentions that he “never had a brother,” but a season or two later, we see he DOES have a brother. They’re estranged, but he’s still there.
On “Seinfeld”, George once mentions a brother that we never see.
Later in the run of “Married With Children”, the writers must have forgotten that the show is supposed to take place in Chicago. I’ve heard references to In-N-Out Burger, which I don’t think they have outside of California. I’ve heard Al use “San Quentin” as a generic term for prison, which I doubt anyone in Illinois would do.
It is way too odd to see Lenny when he used to play a lawyer and Van Buren when she was a ghetto mom.
Another missing child: Judy, the youngest girl from Faily Matters. They just went on like everything was normal, having family meeting sans their daughter. That is a horrible thing for young viewers to see! Once, the mother made a joke, something like, “Looks like Judy’s room!” (I guess they were still trying to pretend she still lived there), and my brother and I decided she was suffocated by a pile of trash or something. And where is their little Judy now? To my horror, she is a hard core porn star.
Anyone remember the little blond boy named Seven on Married with Children?
Seemed to just dissapear with only a passing reference from Marcy that he was living with her,but we never see the poor kid again and no one says a word about it.
I don’t see this as a lapse in continuity. I wouldn’t go back to that house either. An error would be George mentioning he was an only child.
I use in in Texas. Sometimes I use “Alcatraz.” And we take our prisons VERY seriously in Texas!
I’ve heard that there was a scene in one of the Superman movies where the… ahem… bulge in his tights changes from one side to the other. After that one, an athletic cup became a standard part of the costume.
In The Jagged Edge, Glenn Close plays a lawyer, defending what turns out to be a very guilty cient, played by Jeff Bridges. Anyway, in one courtroom scene, she is wearing one hideous lawyer outfit, there is a cutaway, and when we cut back to her she is wearing a completely different hideous lawyer outfit.
In Manhunter William Peterson is playing Will Graham. I none scene he is in a grocery store with his stepson talking about Lector. They are walking down the cleaning products aisle, and it isn’t a cutaway, there is a jump in the film and they are suddenly in the ceral aisle.
They recently reran the “Towelie” episode of South Park. That episode had some continuity peculiarities. Let’s see if I can get this out in a way that makes sense:
Two rival factions are after Towelie: Tynacorp and the army. The boys have a video game system, an Okama Gamesphere. The Gamesphere is swiped from their house, and they get a call to deliver Towelie to a gas station outside town for its return. So, they go to the gas station, where they are met by agents of Tynacorp. It’s then established that Tynacorp didn’t call the boys and don’t know about the Gamesphere, but that the army set the meeting up as a trap. So, the army should be the ones who swiped the Gamesphere to set up the trap.
But at the end of the episode, they discover the Gamesphere at the headquarters of Tynacorp, where the “final battle” takes place. How the hell did it get there?
There’s one that tops them all.
Bonfire of the Vanities was filmed in New York (mostly exteriors) and Los Angeles (on soundstages, mostly interiors). There was a three-week break while the production staff and equipment were moved. During that time, Melanie Griffith got breast implants.
Of course, in the movie ** Evita ** they hid Madonna’s pregnancy, but I found myself wondering when Eva Peron had breast implants.
In Beverly Clearly’s book ** Beezus and Ramona ** their aunt’s name is give as Beatrice Ann Haswell. When the aunt gets married in ** Ramona Forever **, her father is referred to as “Grandfather Day.” How did that happen?
She was a bastard child!?